Twenty-four years ago, the National Heritage Resources Act, No. 25 of 1999 (NHRA) was enacted in South Africa. This was a moment of change, when the heritage of those marginalised during the colonial and Apartheid eras would finally be given its rightful place on the national heritage list. There was a sense of optimism amongst politicians that the African past was finally to be recognised in an inclusive and representative future. This was echoed in archaeology, given its central role in uncovering and telling the story of precolonial South Africa. The discipline slowly opened its doors to academics of all ethnic groups and new perspectives were identified. But an examination of the practical consequences and impact of this progressive legislation for transforming officially declared heritage in the past 24 years shows surprisingly little change in the overall body of recognized, listed heritage. Recent studies of transformation in South African archaeology have focussed on institutional transformation; possible transformation of the types and frequency of sites declared as national and provincial heritage sites has not yet been examined. It is this issue which our paper addresses. The paper presents analysis that relies on the South African Heritage Resources Information System (SAHRIS) database covering the period 1936 to mid-2022. Whilst sites associated with European colonialism still predominate, there has been a change in the frequency of types of heritage declared since 1999, with an increase in sites associated with the Black liberation struggle. Yet the list remains very unbalanced, with only a single heritage site connected to the precolonial past of Black South Africans having been declared as a national heritage site since 1999. We discuss and classify the types of heritage declared since 1999 and suggest reasons for the distortion.

中文翻译：

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南非考古学的非殖民化：1999 年《国家遗产资源法》颁布二十年后

二十四年前，南非颁布了 1999 年第 25 号《国家遗产资源法》(NHRA)。这是一个变革的时刻，在殖民和种族隔离时代被边缘化的人们的遗产最终将在国家遗产名录中获得应有的地位。政治家们有一种乐观的感觉，认为非洲的过去最终将在一个包容性和代表性的未来中得到承认。鉴于考古学在揭示和讲述前殖民时期南非的故事方面发挥着核心作用，这一点在考古学中得到了回应。该学科慢慢地向各族裔学者敞开了大门，并发现了新的观点。但对过去 24 年来这项旨在改变官方宣布的遗产的渐进立法的实际后果和影响的审查显示，令人惊讶的是，公认的列入遗产的整体几乎没有发生任何变化。最近关于南非考古学转型的研究主要集中在制度转型；尚未审查是否可能改变被宣布为国家和省级遗产地的地点的类型和频率。我们的论文所讨论的正是这个问题。本文基于涵盖 1936 年至 2022 年中期的南非遗产资源信息系统 (SAHRIS) 数据库进行了分析。虽然与欧洲殖民主义相关的遗址仍然占主导地位，但自 1999 年以来，宣布遗产类型的频率发生了变化，与黑人解放斗争相关的遗址有所增加。然而，该名单仍然非常不平衡，自 1999 年以来，只有一个与南非黑人前殖民历史有关的遗产地被宣布为国家遗产地。我们对 1999 年以来宣布的遗产类型进行了讨论和分类，并提出了扭曲的原因。